Posts by Eikadistes

I note that Diogenes documents both dates (the 7th and the 10th) within one page of each other, the first one being a citation to Apollodorus, and the second being a citation of Epicurus' Last Will: “He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronicles, in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, during the archonship of Sosigenes, on the seventh day of the month of Gamelion, seven years after the death of Plato" (498). And then, one page later, "[T]he customary celebration of my birthday each year on the tenth of Gamelion.” (Mensch, Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius 499)

Since Both of these citations come from Diogenes, and they occur within a few paragraphs of each other, I think it is likely that the tenth is a symbolic custom, designated by Epicurus, and the seventh is the actual date of his birth.

The only proposition I have heard that corresponds with our Calendar comes from Alpers (about whom I could not find more information besides a citation from Alger) who proposes that the 24th of January corresponds with the 20th of Gamelion. So, if we are to take the 7th of Gamelion to be the actual date of Epicurus’ birth, then that should work out to January 11, 341 BCE. And then, the "customary celebration" of Epicurus' birth would fall on January 14, each year.

From my sources, I am drawing the following conclusions:

The 7th of Gamelion is the actual date of Epicurus' birth (Jan. 11th?)

The 10th of Gamelion is the date of celebration for those who strictly follow Epicurus' Last Will (Jan. 14th?)

The 20th of Gamelion is the date of celebration for the Eikadistae who merged his Birthday with Gamelion Eikas (Jan. 24th?)

"Sloppy commentary" is exactly right. I think this is what happens when secondary sources cite each other over source material. It seems to me that Epicurus' birthday may have been posthumously celebrated (after centuries) on the 20th as an extension of the monthly Eikas celebration. That, however, does not mean that he was born on the 20th of Gamelion, only that his birthday was celebrated in accordance with the monthly Eikas festival.

I am comfortable ruling out the 20th as a reflection of his historical birthdate. I think it is a symbolic custom. Who started that custom is also of interest, as they may not have had access to Epicurus' Last Will.

As to the differences between the 7th versus the 10th, Epicurus, himself, refers to the "customary celebration of my birthday on the tenth day of Gamelion in each year", whereas ancient authors like Diogenes agree that he was born on "seventh day of the month of Gamelion". I tend to think that one may have favored a historical birthdate as opposed to a celebration that has been tweeked to accommodate an occasion (like celebrating your birthday on the weekend).

My question, now, is this: is the usage of "customary" in Epicurus' Will a reflection of a symbolic celebration, moved in accordance to some other occasion? Or is this a technical description of his actual birthdate?

Why do we have three different birthdates for Epicurus?

The 7th

“Epicurus was born (as Laertius relates out of the Chronology of Apollodorus) in the 3rd year of the 109th Olympiad, the 7th day of the month Gamelion” (Gassendi, Epicurus, His Life and Doctrine 106, 1660)

“[F]or he was born on the 7th and dy’d on the 10th of the Month Gamelion” (Stanley, The History of Philosophy: Volume 3, 122, 1660)

“[A]fter the death of Epicurus they were to be perpetuated in memory of himself […] the anniversary of his birth, which fell on the seventh day of the month Gamelion” (De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 104, 1954)

“First as to chronology. Of the authorities used in the Life far the best is Apollodorus, whose versified Chronology embodied the results of the great Eratosthenes. His data make it clear that Epicurus was born on the 7th of Gamelion (i.e. in our January) 341 B.C., and died in 270 B.C.” (Taylor, Epicurus, 18-19, 1911)

“Diogenes Laertius (10:14) also records a tradition that placed Epicurus’ birthday on the seventh of Gamelion. On the confusion (ancient and modern) between the gathering on the twentieth of every month and the celebration fo Epicurus’ birthday on the tenth of Gamelion, see Clay 1986 and Sider 1997: 152-53 and 156. Cicero (Fin. 2.101) and Pliny (HN 35.5) differentiate between the two” (Gordon, Then Invention and Gendering of Epicurus 30, 2012)

“He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronicles […] on the seventh day of the month of Gamelion, seven years after the death of Plato.” (Mensch, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 498, 2020)

The 10th

“Another part went to defray the expenses of the social meetings held annually on the anniversary of the birthday of Epicurus (the 10th of the Attic month Gamêlion)” (Wallace, Epicureanism 66)

“[T]he annual gathering of the group to celebrate his birthday on the tenth of Gamelion (in January).” (Clay, The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 22)

“Epicureans are to observe: Epicurus’ birthday on the tenth of the month Gamelion” (Gordon, Then Invention and Gendering of Epicurus 30)

“The Will provides (a) for an annual celebration of the birthday of Epicurus on the tenth of Gamelion (his birthday was actually on the seventh, according to Diog. Laert. 10.14)” (The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams 394)

The 20th

“He was born on the twentieth of the month of Gamelion (24 january 341) […] The debate over the exact date of his birth was definitively resolved by Alpers 1968.” (Algra, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy 43

“There were two rites for Epicurus: one annual, the twentieth of Gamelion, his birthday, and one on the twentieth of each month...” (Dorandi, Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism 58)

“Cf. Plut., Adv. Col. 1117AB. Epicurus’ birthday was commemorated each year and the twentieth day of each month was celebrated in honour of Metrodorus and later also of Epicurus himself. Cf. De Witt, Epicurus 105.” (Rist, Epicurus: An Introduction 11, 1972)

“[F]or conducting the customary birthday feast for us every year on the twentieth of Gamelion” (Epicurus, Lives of Eminent Philosophers translated by Stephen White 417, 2021)

I can definitely do a white pig with a yellow circle though!

I'll hit you up after work.

The latter two images are high-quality transparency images. If you have a black background, the black images will blend into it because they do not contain any negative space except for a PNG background-removal.

I feel like I may not have shared these before, but feel free to use them for additional image creation.

The observation that atomi do not emit eidola is consistent with the physics that explains the methods used to take this award-winning photo of a "Strontium atom" (which is actually a re-emission of laser light):

"An image of a single positively-charged strontium atom, held near motionless by electric fields, has won the overall prize in a national science photography competition, organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)." (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-b…otography-prize)

From a National Geographic article about taking a picture of a Stronium atom: "Atoms are infinitesimally small, measuring only a miniscule fraction of an inch in diameter. At 38 protons and 215 billionths of a millimeter across, strontium atoms are relatively large by comparison. Still, the only reason why we can see the atom in the photo is because it absorbed and then re-emitted laser light at a speed capturable by a long camera exposure. So, the photo is actually of the laser light being re-emitted, rather than the outline of an atom. Without the long exposure effect, the atom wouldn't be visible to the naked eye." (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/articl…competition-spd)

If large, invisible particles exist, according to Epicurean physics, then they should still form compounds which can be seen. They could have reasoned that there are no compounds that, when broken, simply poof into an invisible realm of large particles. For example, there is not a mineral that can get split in half, and then both halves suddenly disappear. Everything we observe seems to dissolve, eventually, into something that is at least finer than dust.

Clay provides at least two lists of ΣΤΟΙΧΕΙΩΜΑΤΑ (STOIKHEIOMATA), with very minor differences. Also, I note that Clay does not try to reconstruct the same ΔΩΔEKA ΣTOIXEIΩΣEIΣ (DODEKA STOIKHEIOSEIS) that De Witt does (the "Twelve"). He omits the Propositions about uniform atomic motion and the atomic swerve.

In Paradosis and Survival (12), he writes:

1. “Nothing comes into being out of nothing.” (EH 38.8-39.1, DRN I 145-150, 159-160)

2. “Nothing is reduced to nothing.” (EH 39.1-2, DRN I 215-218, 237)

3. “The universe always was as it is and always will be.” (EH 39.1-2, DRN II 294-307; V 359-363) (Atomic Theory; Quantum Field Theory)

4. “The universe is made up of bodies and void.” (EH 39.6-40.2, DRN I 418-428)

5. “Bodies are atoms and their compounds.” (EH 40.7-9, DRN I 483-486)

6. “The universe is infinite.” (EH 41.6-10, DRN I 958-1001)

7. “Atoms are infinite in number and space extends without limit” (EH 41.11-42.4, DRN I 1008-1020)

8. “Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number, but the variety of their shapes is indefinite, not infinite.” (EH 42.10-43.4, DRN II 522-527)

9. “Atomic motion is contstant and of two kinds.” (EH 43.5-44.1, DRN II 95-102 [I 952])

10. “Atoms share only three of the characteristics of sensible things: shape, weight, mass.” (EH 54.3-6, DRN II 748-752)

In Lucretius' Translation of Greek Philosophy (35-39), Clay writes:

1. “Nothing is created out of nothing” (DRN I 145-150, 159-160)

2. “Nothing is reduced to nothing.” (DRN I 215-218, 237)

3. “The universe is made up of two components: body and void.” (DRN I 418-428)

4. “Body is understood as atoms and their compounds.” (DRN I 438-486)

5. “Atoms share only three of the characteristics of sensible things: shape, weight, mass.” (DRN II 748-752)

6. “Atomic motion is constant and of two kinds.” (DRN I 952)

7. “The universe is infinite.” (DRN I 958-864)

8. “The atoms are infinite in number, and space extends without limit.” (DRN 1008-1020)

9. “Atoms of similar shape are infinite in number, but the variety of their shapes is indefinite, not infinite” (DRN I 1008-1020)

Clay also has a slightly different version in Lucretius and Epicurus, but I do not have access to it. They are essentially the same, but Clay never presents the same list in the same order twice.

Do we have any comparable passages regarding the size of clouds? Epicurus would have naturally observed how clouds appear to be fist-sized from our perspective, but city-sized when they drop to the ground as fog. Anyone can perceive that they float in the sky, lighter than air, and yet can drop a deluge of heavy water at the same time.

I have mentioned before that a mountain expands beyond our peripheral vision at the summit, but appears no larger than a thumbnail when viewing that same mountain from the middle of the Aegean (which Epicurus did).

The sun and the moon easily eclipse any object on the planet, given appropriate distance, so I continue to debate his meaning of "appearances". Does he mean, "literally fist-sized according to the visual sense organ", or does he mean, "approximately bigger-than-anything-on-Earth according to the mental sense organ"?

Quote from Cassius

this "Oasis" graphic came up in discussion last night on Zoom and the person who brought it up mentioned that they got a lot of use out of it and appreciated it!

That is wonderful! I am very happy to read that others are finding it useful.

Quote from Cassius

But I never found a reference to "Thomas Young." Do you know if he wrote anything worth reading? Probably this list of books here deserves a thread of its own for people who would like to research and cite "Founding Fathers" of the USA for reference in advocating Epicurean viewpoints. Even if they were "deists" or didn't mention Epicurus specifically I can imagine this kind of material being useful to lots of people. I didn't orginally consider it but of course now in retrospect I should include Frances Wrights AFDIA in that list too.

Thomas Young was an intellectual mentor to Ethan Allen and perhaps a more devoted contributor to the Lucretius-inspired group of Colonial "Deists" than his contemporaries. I recently read about him in Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart. It is a dense read, but very informative, and I recommend it.

Young's fellow citizens regularly accused him of being "a man of no morals," an "infamous character," and, of course, an "infidel." And Young--this is perhaps the most unusual thing about him--regularly responded with daring public confessions in which he let it be known, in so many words, that if with such terms his antagonists meant to identify him a deist, then they were right. Rushing to his defense after one assault on the doctor's unacceptable creed, his fellow members of the Boston Committee of Correspondence marveled that on his journey through life he had accumulated many friends of high character notwithstanding the fact that "uniform throughout, he appears in all places to have declared his sentiments on all subjects, natural, civil, and religious." The thing about Young, everyone agreed, was that he could not keep his mouth shut. When he died, the nation he served found it convenient to forget such a troublesome individual. Let him now face the consequence in the afterlife whose reality he so blasphemously denied, they said, and they moved on.

Young's philosophical oeuvre is not large or systematic, and it is sometimes obtuse, as one might expect from a self-taught medicine man moonlighting as a global revolutionary. Yet its neglect turns out to be the most damaging of the many unfortunate consequences of his omission from the history books. In the uncomfortably personal confessions he committed to print, Young tells us what it was like to come of age as a deist in prerevolutionary America. In his sundry philosophical treatises, he articulates a form of deism that is substantially more radical than that which has traditionally figured in the stories America tells itself about its philosophical heritage. And he makes clear that, at least in his own mind, this radical philosophy was the axis on which the Revolution turned. For him, the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. (Ibid. 22-23)

Quote from Don

Are you familiar with Thomas Jefferson's Bible editing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible?wprov=sfla1

There is an interesting historical connection between Epicurean philosophy and (heterodox) Christianity at the intersection of the American Revolution. While Colonial religion was dominated by the evangelism of the First Great Awakening, a notable group of critics (including Ethan Allen, a founder of Vermont, Thomas Young, organizer of the Boston Tea Party, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson, who re-wrote the Bible) represented a piety apart from religion.

Rather than dispense with Christianity altogether, some of these individuals sought to re-orient the narrative of Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ into the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, a simple moral reformer in ancient Judaea. They generally rejected the Epistles and Revelation in their entirety, and saw Christian Churches as being subversive political institutions that repeatedly changed their doctrines to accommodate political interests.

At the same time, critics of Christianity heavily employed religious language that evangelists have cited to support the "American is a Christian Nation" argument. A closer reading of that language, and the philosophical context in which it was written, however, shows that "God" and "Creator" refer to "Nature" and never to "Jesus". Even so, many of these critics glorified the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth as the most morally "perfect" figure in history.

Nonetheless, these critics stand in contrast with the Christian authorities of the time (most notably the Catholic Church), so they are not great examples of typical Christians (if Christians at all). They derived their positions from a line that begins with De Rerum Natura, and grows through Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and then eventually American Revolutionaries like Jefferson who held on to some aspects of Christianity after applying an Epicurean critique.

If one is intending to interface with Christianity in a way that does not completely dismiss the tradition while maintaining an Epicurean position, Jefferson's approach seems appropriate.

If he only realized that he ends with a uniquely Epicurean observation:

"[Y]ou should [not] try to meditate yourself into a mystical state of total presence or concentration, but just that to recognise the fact that the past is past, and that soon you won’t have any future left – so you really might as well be here. It’s not so bad. Often enough, it’s wonderful. And in any case, there’s nowhere else to be."

"Death is nothing to us" is not just a temporal categorization of "before" versus "after", but, more important, it is a proposition that we are mortal, that life is finite, that time is precious, and pleasure is prudent.

Besides, Aristotle suggesting that men have more teeth than women is really the most useless pseudo-observation.

I am looking forward to adding more dots on the map!

School at LAMPSACUS (modern Northwestern Turkey) Founded by Epicurus

The GARDEN (O KHΠOΣ) of ATHENS (Central Greece) Founded by Epicurus

Community in CORINTH (Peloponnese peninsula, Greece)

Community in CHALCIS (Euboea island, Greece)

Community in THEBES (Boeotia, Central Greece)

Community in THESSALONIKI (Macedonia region, Greece)

Community in KOS (Southeastern island of Greece)

School at RHODES (Southeastern island of Greece)

School at AMASTRIS (Northern Turkey) Founded by Tiberius Claudius Lepidus

Community in TARSUS (Northwest Turkey)

Community in PERGAMON (Western Turkey)

Community in COLOPHON (Western Turkey)

Community in EPHESUS (Southwestern Turkey)

School at MILETUS (Southwestern Turkey) Founded by Demetrius Laco

Community in OINOANDA (Southwestern Turkey) Supported by Diogenes

Community in RHODIAPOLIS (Southwestern Turkey)

School at ANTIOCH (South-central Turkey) Founded by Philonides

School at APAMEIA (Western Syria) Lead by Aurelius Belius Philippus

Community at SIDON (Lebanon)

Community at TYRE (Lebanon)

Community in ALEXANDRIA (City of Alexander III of Macedon in Egypt)

Community in OXYRHYNCHUS (Southern Egypt)

School at NAPLES (Southwestern Italy) Founded by Siro

Community in HERCULANEUM (Southwestern Italy) Lead by Philodemus

Community in ROME (Western Italy) Inspired by Albucius

Community in AUGUSTODUNUM (Eastern France) Inspired by Albucius

“[Epicurus'] philosophy rode this tide. It had reached Alexandria even before his arrival in Athens. By the second century it was flourishing in Antioch and Tarsus, had invaded Judaea, and was known in Babylon. Word of it had reached Rome while Epicurus was still living, and in the last century B.C. it swept over Italy.” (De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 29)

“Both Thessalonica and Corinth must have been strongholds of Epicureanism.” (Ibid. 338)

“After the third century BCE there were Epicurean centres in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt: adherents, identified from their cities, came from Tyre, Sidon, Tarsus, and Alexandria. Epicureanism also expanded west. […] The existence of communities in the Naples region is attested by both Horace and Vergil. […] Epicureanism can be attested in a board variety of locations: Herculanem, Sorrento, Rhodes, Cos, Pergamon, Oenoanda (the Lycus valley), Apameia (Syria), Rhodiapolis, and Amastris (Bithynia). Locations like Athens and Oxyrhynchus provide evidence for the preservation of Epicurean writing, as well as Herculaneum. […] Asia Minor (notably Ephesus, Alexandria, and Syria are all suggested as prime candidates for its location.” (King, Epicureanism and the Gospel of John: A Study of Their Compatibility 11-13)

“It will be worth our while to observe how admirably Epicureanism was equipped for the penetration of Asia. As mentioned already, the branch school at Lampsacus was strategically situated for dissemination of the creed along the coast of the Black Sea. On the west coast of Asia there was another school at Mytilene […] Still further to the south was the original school at Colophon, close to Ephesus. […] The gateway to Asia, however, had been open to the cred of Epicurus for three centuries before Paul’s time and Tarsus was a center of Epicureanism. […] Epicureanism was the court philosophy of Antioch during the reigns of at least two kings of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes and Demetrius Soter." (Ibid. 62)

“In it he attests the widespread Epicurean communities of Athens, and Chalcis and Thebes in Boeotia.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 20)

"We meet Epicureans not just in Athens, where they were amongst Paul's audiences, but we also come across Epicurean communities in the West, in Herculaneum or Sorrento, in the East, on Rhodes and Cos, in Pergamon, Lycian Oinoanda, Syrian Apameia, in remote southern Lycian Rhodiapolis or in Amastris in Bithynia on the Black Sea. (Ibid. 48)

"It has recently been discovered that the extensive mosaic floor in the House of the Greek Authors in Autun (ancient Augustodunum) includes portraits of Epicurus and Metrodorus (Blanchard-Lemee and Blanchard 1993; Frischer 2006: paragraphs 10-20)." (Gordon, The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus 141)

Quote from Kalosyni

I wonder if some kinds of modern therapy or modern psychology can end up being a kind "false medicine"?

I have Bipolar 1 so paranoia is part of my makeup and many moons ago I discovered a blind spot owned by Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for my condition. At the time, I was in the middle of acknowledging paranoid feelings about a group of people I was calling my friends. My Psy.D. and I worked through exercises that slowly desensitized me to anxiety I felt around groups. I went from a period of being recluse and antisocial to performing onstage.

Still, the strides that I made could not prepare me for the following: that group really did have ill intentions planned for me, and more than one individual was involved in methodically acting on those ill intentions. "You don't have anything to feel anxious about" as a blanket statement was inadvertently poison, because I needed to hear, "You may suffer from irrational paranoia, but, in this case, your paranoia is justified and the objects thereof are worthy of suspicion."

Having a trusted friend in my corner was as important as a proper chemical balance. A medical professional can only do so much. It takes the support of a trusted friend to know you well enough to offer nuanced advice. A psychologist, therapist, or counselor can only work with so much. Someone close to you has an invested interest in your health, and (in an era of constant moving and job-switching) is more reliable than a doctor you infrequently see.

Anyway, CBT made it easier for me to go on to tolerate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What it failed to do was provide direction. In my case, how can I distinguish justified suspicion from unjustified paranoia? Under a microscope of academic psychology, I seemed to be obsessing over unhealthy thoughts. In a larger context, I was actually obsessing over making a critical decision that warranted my anxious behavior.

As a side note, one thing you learn in theatre is that the general anxiety thespians call "first night jitters" is actually a net positive gift from nature. You stop performing as well when you get desensitized to the crowd and stop caring.

On Epicurus being a herald:

“Epicurus is occasionally described as as a saviour (sōtér) or messenger (kéryx), terms which are also used by Epicureans themselves and are reminiscient of Old Testament expressions. Perhaps such a choice of words was intended as a kind of ‘competitive offer’ to the blossoming Christianity.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 53)

“Diogenes employs similar language to describe Epicurus to his fellow Epicureans in Rhodes, calling him ‘the herald who saved you’ (NF 7 III.12f [see Smith (1971) 365-71]) = fr. 73 Casanova [= fr. 72.III.12-14 Smith]). The conception of Epicurus as a savior is of course not unique to Diogenes; we find it in Pompeia Plotina’s letter to the Epicureans of Athens, and elsewhere among Epicureans both Greek and Roman. But the term kēryx is neither common nor orthodox. Epicurus had, it seems, used the verb Κῆρυttein in his enthusiastic description of friendship ‘dancing about all of the inhabited world, heralding the call to us all: Awake to proclaim blessedness!’ Diogese speaks of ‘salvation’ when he states his motives for displaying on the wall of his stoa the gospel of Epicurean philosophy. The philosophy as a soter is not a commonplace in the philosophical literature of the second century. And Diogenes’ description of Epicurus as a herald (kēryx) is even less common. Both terms, ‘savior’ and ‘herald,’ remind us rather of the language of the New Testament. The language of I Timothy 2.7 combines the terms ‘herald’ and ‘apostle,’ and ‘savior’ is the word for Christ in II Timothy 1.10. The kērygma of the New Testament is of course the coming of Christ as the Messiah and savior.” (Clay, Paradosis and Survival 243-244)

"For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all--this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." (1 Timothy 2:5-7)

"This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has not been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospelI was appointed a herald and an apostle and Ia teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do." (2 Timothy 1:9-12)

"For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of the deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly" (2 Peter 2:4-5)

Regarding the usefulness of prayer:

“[P]etitionary prayer to the gods is obviously, for an Epicurean, of no avail; and, indeed, as Epicurus says in his Vatican sayings 65, it is pointless to pray for happiness which a man can provide for himself. If the gods paid attention to human prayers the human race would long since have become extinct since men are continually praying for calamities to fall upon their enemies [...] Yet Epicurus recommend prayer, on the grounds that it is a natural act and that one should also participate in the religious life of one’s country, and it seems that he himself, led the way by taking part, and urging his followers to take part, in the sacrifices of the gods, without worrying too much about popular superstitious beliefs.” (Thrower, The Alternative Tradition: Religion and the Rejection of Religion in the Ancient World 184)

“…already been pointed out by the Epicurean Hermocrates — does one have to pray to be able to pray properly? — by using Epicurean ideas of prayer as meditation, when the good is not a result generated from outside, but consists in the act of the prayer itself and, consequently, in looking after the self.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, 60)

“[T]he Epicurean school encouraged prayer representing a disinsterested, high-minded admiration and adoration of an ideal. Pray (in its genesis and in its employment, doubtless representing, at once, for some an individual, emotional need, and for others a social habit) became through the Epicurean rationalization of religion, theoretically at least, an intellectual matter, conducted, according to the Epicurean conception, truly pie and sancte. The higher aspiration of the Epicureans for an ideal that might be worshiped because of its perfection, found expression in prayer, that necessarily involved the religion of poetry, of mythology, of cultus, and of dogma, while at the same time, it gave to gods and goddesses a new function and character. It is inconceivable that prayer among the Epicureans was wholly or even in large part the result of a concessionary or cowardly spirit; it was rather a psycholigcal necessity and at the same time, as conceived by Epicureans, not inconsistent with the entire Epicurean philosophy of religion. Sincerity in the matter of prayer would necessarily among the Epicureans be a variable matter, as also the degree of attachment to the old religion of which the Epicurean theology was an out-growth, a purification, and a reconstruction.” (Classical Philology: Volume 2 188)

“It is true that Epicurus saw little value in prayer but he did declare that continuous happiness was possible and he exalted the virtue of gratitude to first rank as a factor of happiness. Verse 16 is therefore partly Epicurean, partly exclusively Pauline: ‘Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks under all circumstances.’” (St. Paul and Epicurus 51)

Regarding Epicurus as the sōtēr of humanity:

“It is interesting that a man like Epicurus—who later was so much attacked by the Christians that only some of his fragments remain—was called soter by his pupils. This is the Greek word which the New Testament uses and which we translate as “savior”. Epicurus the philosopher was called a savior. […] He was called soter because he did the greatest thing anyone could do for his followers: he liberated them from anxiety.” (Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, from Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism 5 [1972])

“The similarity of god and sage reaches out of the paradisiacal realms of the Garden and intermundia into the world inhabited by common men, for it is in the world of the common man that the effects of divinity and deosimilitude are most visible. Both the sage and the gods are called sōtēres in Epicurean writings, for both effect acts of salvation for the benefit of the common man still in the world.” (Frischer, The Sculped Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece 79)

“[T]he Lord Jesus Christ . . . our Savior. In the Greco-Roman world, it was common for the Caesars to call themselves “Lord” (kurios […]) and “Savior” (sōtēr […]) […] For example, Epicurus is called sōtēr by his followers.” (Hoehner and Davids, Ephesians; Philippians, 1-2 Thessalonians; Colossians, Philemon 209)

“Epicurus is occasionally described as a savior (sōtēr) or messenger (kēryx), terms which are also used by Epicureans themselves and are reminiscient of Old Testament expressions. Perhaps such a chocie of words was intended as a kind of ‘competitive offer’ to the blossoming of Christianity. Lucian’s Alexander seeks to put up a monument to Epicurus the ‘saviour’, ‘for this in the truest sense holy and divine man, the only one actually to recognize that which is true and good and, through its dissemination, to become a liberator and benefactor of his disciples’.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 53)

Epicurean Similarities With Early Christianity

— Personalized letters (Epistles) were the primary form of literary dissemination.

— "FAITH" (as ΠIΣTIΣ or pístis) served a key role (also "confidence", "conviction", "guarantee", "pledge", "assurance")

— The founder was called "SAVIOR" (as ΣΩTHP or sōtēr) and honored as a universal "Savior of Humanity".

— Followers venerated the founder as a deity.
— A core set of beliefs was prescribed by the founder as dogma (ΔOΓMA).

— Uniquely included women as equals and leaders of the early community.

— General cautioning against participating in State politics

— Suspicion of wealth and fame as reliable sources of happiness.

— Recognition that a simple life is all that is required to enjoy the fullness of a good life.

— Acknowledgement that a beloved friend is worth sacrificing oneself for.
— Prayer was employed as an effective practice

— Jesus is called "kathegetes" in Matthew 23:10, the same noun used to describe Epicurus' brothers' roles

— Epicurus, St. Paul, and Noah are described as KHPYX, a “herald" (or "preacher" in the King James Version)

— Incorrectly represented as "atheists" by philosophical and political opponents